Monday, February 18, 2013

Fire Emblem: Awakening Character Ranking & Growth Chart

Otherwise known as "How I Learned to Love Donnel"

I recently bought Fire Emblem Awakening for 3DS. In the Fire Emblem series it is always frustrating to raise the level of a character and then only one attribute increases. The opposite is also true when a character levels up and six or seven attributes increase. I compiled this list of the characters so you know which to keep and which to bench.

About Growth Rate in Fire Emblem

In all Fire Emblem games each character has a hidden stat for every attribute called "growth rate". The growth rate determines how quickly a character grows in each attribute - Strength, Magic, Skill, Speed, Luck, Defense, and Resistance.

The growth rate is the percentage chance that the character will increase that attribute when they level up. For instance if the growth rate is 60 for speed. Every time a character levels up there is a 60% chance that speed will increase by +1.

Any growth rates above 100 will automatically increase by +1 and the number over 100 is the chance it increases by +2. For example, 120 growth rate for HP will always increase +1 for HP but also has a 20% chance that it will increase +2.

Why Donnel Grows So Fast

As you can see in growth chart Donnel naturally has a growth rate of 325 overall. For every level up he will increase and average of +3.25 overall. A respectable number, good enough for 5th best.

But Donnel also comes equipped with the skill 'Attribute', which increases growth rate by 20 for every attribute. With this skill factored in Donnel's growth rate is actually 485. By far the best growth rate in the entire game.

Fire Emblem Awakening Character Rank

NameHPStrMagSklSpdLckDefResTotal
Tiki8040403530804545395
Nowi7045353030655035360
Emmeryn4515604545753030345
Walhart7560153030454530330
Donnel5045154045803515325
Panne6045155055404015320
Anna4530303535803030315
Yen'fay6045154545603015315
Aversa4530453045603030315
Flavia5035204545553025305
Chrom4540104040703520300
Kellam5040154035355530300
Henry4535354540404020300
Gangrel4545304545303030300
Lon'qu4035205050552520295
Cherche5540204035504510295
Say'ri5035204040453530295
Basilio6545104035454015295
Avatar4040353535553020290
Sully4035204040603520290
Vaike605010453545405290
Sumia3530204545602530290
Maribelle3020404030801040290
Cordelia5045153535454025290
Olivia4035254545602020290
Frederick6040104035404020285
Ricken5020353030653025285
Libera4525354535452530285
Virion3540304045402525280
Stahl5045103530505010280
Lissa3525353035651535275
Gaius5045154545352515275
Gregor6040104030454010275
Tharja4025452545403520275
Miriel3515404040502030270
UPDATE: There is a character with a better growth rate than Donnel - Nah. She is the child of Nowi and is also a Manakete. Her base growth rate is 375. If you make Donnel the father she can inherit 'Attribute' skill as well and would have a real growth rate of 535. Every turn she will increase an average of +5 to +6.

The difference is Donnel is a playable character after Paralogue 1, but Nah is only playable after Paralogue 16.

9 comments :

Travis Hendricks said...

These are just the type of stats I need for this game. I got to Chapter 2 on Hard/Classic and I couldn't stand seeing characters that seemed like fun and interesting characters die (forever) so I had to restart on Hard/Casual so I will never lose any characters permanently. I think my lack of strategy will make this a better decision over all. But stats like this article should help too.

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately, this article (for all its wonderful usefulness in clarifying information that most people could have already found on any of the dozens of reputable, useful Fire Emblem sites out there) fails to recognize that it's not necessarily the base growth rates taken out-of-context that make a character, but the growth bases in certain STAT groupings. For example, Swordmaster or Myrmidon characters (because everyone who's ever played Radiant Dawn or Rekka no Ken better love them...) have naturally high Speed and Skill growths. Thus, they will often gain more Speed/Skill per level, meaning that they will be able to outspeed and outdamage their enemies. If one were to look at Lon'qu, for example, one might easily dismiss him due to his subpar Strength growth and mediocre base growth total.

However, give him something to remedy that subpar Strength (such as reclassing into a Wyvern Knight) and his naturally high Speed and Skill growths make up for any shortfall.

This brings up a very interesting point: It is of paramount importance to consider a unit's overall UTILITY, rather than just their base growth total. If, for example, one were to look at Olivia, one could easily dismiss her for the same reason as Lon'qu above. However, Olivia has high stat caps as a Swordmaster (or frankly any class) and her special skill as a Dancer allows units with Galeforce (such as possibly Sumia, or especially Avatar) to move (if my sources are correct) up to four times per turn. Which is quite a lot.

That brings up another interesting flaw: This article fails to consider the fact that it's not really the growths that matter (infinite experience, anyone?) but the stat caps. And characters with subpar growths, like Vaike, have rather intriguing stat caps, allowing them to fulfil a particular role effectively.

We no doubt appreciate the effort it took for you to write this. However, your methodology of evaluation is flawed, and for these reasons, I cannot let this go.

Three final indicts:

1) You did not even mention child characters (along with THEIR stat caps).
2) You did not even mention unit efficiacies in other areas.
3) You misspelled "Manakete" (Japanese: "Mamukute")

~Anonymous Watcher in the Night

JJ Hendricks said...

@anonymous - Thanks for the great response. I have fixed the typo.

I do not claim that this is the be-all-end-all in Fire Emblem stats. There are lots of sites out there that go much more in-depth in this, SerenesForest for example.

This is just one stat comparison.

Your comment about base growth being weak, but can be supplemented by changing to a better class. It would be better to choose a character who is naturally going to grow in a particular stat and then make it even stronger.

No sense fighting the base growth rate, go with it.

The Stat Cap for each character is definitely valid though. I know some of my characters have reached the stat cap on base classes at level 4 or 5, well before they can be upgraded to an advanced class.

Anonymous said...

@ Anonymous- Not everyone has time to spend 60+ hours playing the game to max out everyone's stats. Some of us would be happy to beat the game and come back to it later to finish the side quests and max out characters for the sake of maxing out characters.

Also, being "go0d" at Fire Emblem doesn't give you the authority to be rude, especially considering anyone with an IQ of 100 should be able to beat the game. Next time you feel the need put your two cents in feel free to try posting something like this:

"This is a great article for helping people get through the game. Players who are more interested in having the most powerful characters should consider stat caps before growth rates. SerenesForest and web pages like it have more details."

It's a fool who plays it cool by making his world a little colder.

Phil- Not a creeper.

Anonymous said...

You got Nah's stats wrong. A child character has its own base growth rate added to their parents' growth rates and then divided by 3 to get their actual growth rate. Then you have to add the class' growth rate to get the total growth rate.

Anonymous said...

Awesome job posting this up for everyone to see! I appreciate all the effort you've done :)

Anonymous said...

Ok. So I see Panne and two of the "Dragon Trio" (Tiki, Nah, Nowi) <--- Dragon Trio
But where is Yarne (the other bunny rabbit) and Nah? I'm trying to build a team for street pass and I want to know if Yarne has better stats than Panne.
If you can't find it then that is perfectly fine by me. I just need to know whose stats are better.
Thanks. :3

JJ said...

@anonymous - Nah's base growth rate is 375. I posted an update below the table with her stats. She is very strong, but you don't find her until late in the game. She would be great for StreetPass battling.

Yarne is very strong as well and not much different than Panne. Yarne's growth rate is 325 but is modified by the father's growth rate. The strongest possible father would be Donnel, which would make the actual growth rate for Yarne = 327.

Anonymous said...

Huh. My Miriel's actually pretty good... (maybe because I level-grind her and give her a lot of Spirit Dust)

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